51% OF 18-24 YEAR-OLDS IN AMERICA BELIEVE HAMAS WAS JUSTIFIED
December 18, 2023I do not believe that anything I say about what is happening in Gaza will affect Israeli or American policy in that conflict. But I want to be on record so that when historians look back on this moral calamity, they will see that some Americans were on the right side of history.
What Israel is doing in #Gaza to the Palestinian civilian population – with the support of the Biden administration – is a crime against humanity that serves no meaningful military purpose. As @jstreetdotorg, an important organization in the Israel lobby, puts it, “The scope of the unfolding humanitarian disaster and civilian casualties is nearly unfathomable.”
As I watch this catastrophe for the Palestinians unfold, I am left with one simple question for Israel’s leaders, their American defenders, and the @joebiden administration: have you no decency?”
— John J Mearsheimer
Credit: @aljazeera @ahmedeldin
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#ceasefirenow #FreePalestine #Interfaith #StandWithUs #Truth #Palestine #Gaza #Humanrights #Israel #فلسطين #اسرائیل #غزة
English Script:
51% of people in the United States between the ages of 18, 2018 and 24 say that Hamas was justified. This is stunning. And then if you look at people between the ages of 25 and 34, 25 and 34, 48, 48% say that Hamas was justified in what it did on October seven. So, you see that Israel has a real problem.
And, of course, this problem manifest itself on college campuses. And that’s why the lobby is working overtime now to try to shut down criticism of Israel at universities and colleges. And if Israel’s war has gone way beyond self-defense to the point of making the Gaza Strip itself completely unlivable, why is the Biden administration supporting it?
John Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, as well as most recently, How States Think the Rationality of Foreign Policy. John, it’s terrific to be with you today. Thank you so much for joining us. You wrote a piece this week. Death and destruction in Gaza in which you said that we’ve reached a point where there is simply no meaningful military purpose in Israel’s war. Tell us what you meant.
But when it comes to what Israel is doing in Gaza, you have to distinguish between going after Hamas and punishing the civilian population. And when we talk about punishing the civilian population, we’re talking about killing, murdering huge numbers of civilians, displacing them from their home, starving large chunks of the Palestinian population inside Gaza and so forth and so on. These are basically war crimes. I don’t think there are many people who would dispute that Israel has what we call the right to go after Hamas.
Hamas attacked Israel. Israel’s going after Hamas. That’s not really a contested issue for the most part. But what the Israelis are doing is they’re going far beyond going after Hamas and they are inflicting massive pain and punishment on the civilian population. And in my opinion, this should be unacceptable to decent people all over the world. And the idea that the Biden administration is not only sanctioning this but supporting it.
It’s very important to understand that the Israelis could not conduct this punishment campaign without support from the United States. They need American military weaponry. And furthermore, they need American diplomatic support. And we are giving that to them. So, we are as deeply involved in this disaster, this humanitarian disaster as the Israelis themselves are. Do you find that there is a worry that America is on the wrong side of this?
No, I think there’s widespread support inside the American body politic for the Palestinian civilian population. I mean, I don’t think there’s any question that lots of people think that what the Israelis are doing to the civilian population is deeply wrong. There’s no question there. A lot of people won’t voice their opinion on this issue publicly. And that’s in large part because they fear that the Israel lobby will target them and that will do damage to their career.
There are all sorts of evidence that people on college and university campuses are self-censoring for fear of the Israel lobby. But even there, it’s clear that there’s just widespread support for the Palestinian people and widespread criticism of what Israel is doing.
I mean, just to talk about the United States, we have the potential to bring this bombing campaign to an end. We have huge potential leverage over Israel. There’s no question about it. But it’s almost impossible for any president, including President Biden, obviously, to use any of that leverage.
And by the way, it’s not just the Americans. The Europeans are doing nothing themselves. The Germans and the British, Their behavior is especially egregious on this front. But even in the Arab world, you don’t see the elites in the Arab world doing very much to put an end to this. And it’s a tragic situation, and it is quite remarkable in the year 2023 that the Israelis are able to get away with this.
What do you think Israel wants, if not a two-state solution?
Oh, it’s very clear to me what Israel wants. They want to ethnically cleanse Gaza and they want to ethnically cleanse the West Bank.
